The most radiant gloom you’ve ever heard

By Captain America

Despite relentless recording sessions, not long ago it seemed like no one could keep the Prids away from Albuquerque. In 2003 and 2004, the band played here every eight or nine months. Not that anyone was complaining, mind you. In fact, bassist Mistina La Fave and guitarist/lyricist David Frederickson have cited New Mexico as one of their favorite stops due to the always warm and grateful reception they’ve gotten in the Dirt City. In 2008 a nearly fatal van accident threatened to halt the constant gigging, but the band recovered and jumped back on the road. Unlike many outfits that eventually retreat to the relative calm of the studio, it’s unimaginable to think of the Prids not touring. The only thing that trumps the band’s 10 CDs, EPs and 7-inches is its galvanizing live shows.

Idris Goodwin is a hip-hop sundae

By Summer Olsson

Idris Goodwin is the Neapolitan ice cream of words. He’s a rapper, an HBO Def Poet and an award-winning writer. His material mixes and serves the best elements of these genres. He’s also a “hip-hop educator” who has lectured in institutions across the country on themes like culture and empowerment. Literary journals have published him and clubs have played his music. Goodwin is from Chicago but has duel residence in Illinois and New Mexico. The cherry on top is that he’ll perform as part of the Wordstream Poetry Series at the Harwood Art Center on Friday, June 18. (Full disclosure: In 2006 I acted in Goodwin’s play Braising.)

Popular series gets a makeover

By Mel Minter

The 2010 edition of Women’s Voices, the nearly annual concert series that showcases the area’s exceptional female vocal talent, introduces new curators, a new concept and a new schedule. The series will forgo the usual smorgasbord of pop, jazz and blues on back-to-back nights to offer two distinctly different events. The first is Ladies Sing the Blues on Saturday, June 19, curated by Joan Cere (formerly Griffin). The second is Tribute to Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday and Sarah Vaughan on Saturday, July 10, curated by Patty Stephens.

Raw Art

Done in coarse permanent marker with proletarian flare, this outsider art depicts a blown-out umbrella amidst a downpour. Or does it? Perhaps, rather, it’s an elephant eating grass? Or maybe it’s purely abstract. What’s certain is the performance of lo-fi San Francisco indie bands Telephone Hat and Filbert, along with Albuquerque’s CanyonLands, at Winning Coffee Co. (111 Harvard SE) on Friday, June 18, at 7 p.m. This event is all-ages and free to the people. (Jessica Cassyle Carr)

Evan Christopher long ago established his technical mastery of the clarinet—tone, nuance (emotions subdivided into their millionth parts), phrasing. To that, he adds a scholar’s curiosity, an artist’s sensibility and a capacity for deep feeling. They all come together in his masterwork, The Remembering Song, inspired by his return to New Orleans post-Katrina. This luminous recording, eight of whose 12 tracks are Christopher originals, captures the gratitude, pride, sorrow, anger, resolve, resignation, hope and celebration that quickens the Crescent City today. With help from Bucky Pizzarelli (guitar), James Chirillo (guitar) and Greg Cohen (bass), Christopher reflects profoundly and gently on the city’s tradition and both its historic and its metaphorical longing for home. “Waltz for All Souls” would test the limits of Odysseus tied to the mast. No sirens ever sang so beautifully. (MM)